tecumseh Posted July 12, 2011 Share Posted July 12, 2011 Paper Tiger - I played most of your CMSF missions and campaigns and always thought you were pretty awesome. This one though....it's the next level. Best CMxanything games I've played. I only hope I have enough guys left to see all the maps. Nice one! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave85 Posted October 24, 2011 Share Posted October 24, 2011 I've just finished this campaign in RT. Believe it or not 10 days ago I had never heard of the combat force series, having been a die hard total war fan for the last 5 years. This game is everything I've ever wanted and much much more from a world war 2 strategy game. The montebourg campaign has been great fun. i've been learning more and more evry battle. My favourite so far was probably holding action. I managed to almost completely encircle and destroy the initial german force with <10 casualties. On my right flank my second platoon had faced no opposition after blasting through the hedges and the whole platoon was running along the road leading into the rear of the german position, just as they rounded the corner they come face to face with an armoured car and an entire kraut platoon running the other way. What ensued was carnage, after about 60 seconds of shooting 30 germans and 15 GI's lay in the road bleeding and the armoured car had been abandoned, luckily i managed to get the MG team and the platoon HQ into a hedgerow to mow the germans down. My heart was pounding. Turnbulls stand was also huge fun although my AT guns bugged so I had to settle for 2 close range ambushes on the right of the road and the far right, gunning down about 70 infantry and then running for my life with about 12 casualties. Because I hadn't hit any of the armour in this level I found the labyrnth mission to be one of the hardest. They still had two mark IV's and a marder. The marder was easy enough to take out with a grenade and bazooka attack. But the two mark 4's were covering each other and i'd mistakenly sent all my engineers down my right flank and all my armoured cars down the left so i couldnt open a flanking rout for them. Eventually after several reloads I manged to hit the first panzer with two bazooka teams and then just charged a jeep followed by 3 armoured cars at the second eventually taking it out and storming the objective with 2 minutes to go. I've just finished playing the final Eroudesville mission and I purposefully didn't save once so I couldn't take the cowards way out. What a nightmare this level was. I managed to secure the objective and virtually wipe out the two kraut infantry companies and two STUG's but it cost me half my men and 4 shermans. And I still ran out of time so never had the opportunity to leave the map. On review I realised that the huns still had a completely intact 88 battery in the woods even though I had hit it with a heavy SP gun barrage at the start. This mission started out well enough for me. I completely levelled the german trench position in the copse with several barrages. And managed to storm the first buildings with minor casualties (did lose a sherman to a panzerfaust though) I then put a smoke screen infront of the copse and charged it with two platoons and two tanks. Didn't meet any opposition on my approach, problem was I'd take to long and the German counter attack rolled in to the position before I'd fully taken it. For the next 30 mins easy company were locked a terrifying close range battle and most of the men were starting to lose their nerve and kept pulling back. Because easy had become pretty much combat ineffective I decided to leave them in the copse and launch Fox in head on assault into the buildings to the right. These they managed to take with limited losses but by now I was low on time and after hitting eroudesville with every mortar and gun I had, I charged straight in with fox coy which turned into a bloodbath. During the fighting my last 2 shermans quickly became immobilised so the infantry had to buy the town at a very high cost in bodies. The enemy coy CO team alone got 27 kills. Excellent campaign. Final result was about 1000 casualties for me and 1200 for the huns, with 8 tanks lost each. Obviously I have a lot of learning to do. Just like to congratulate paper tiger on the campaign and the level of historical accuracy which is supreme. This game has really made me appreciate what an absolute nightmare it must have been trying to wrestle western europe from the grip of nazi germany. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pak40 Posted October 25, 2011 Share Posted October 25, 2011 I've just finished this campaign in RT. Believe it or not 10 days ago I had never heard of the combat force series, having been a die hard total war fan for the last 5 years. Welcome to the club, glad you like the game. (Combat Mission, BTW ) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
handihoc Posted October 25, 2011 Share Posted October 25, 2011 Dave 85, Welcome to Combat Mission! Glad you found it, and that you enjoyed The Road To Montebourg. It's a fabulous campaign, and there are loads more great battles included with the game plus new ones, as well as mods, available on the Battlefront Repository. New Normandy modules and CM full releases are scheduled, too. I think you are going to be having a lot of fun these days! :) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vencini Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 I'm on third mission "Le grand Hameau", can I spend all my mortars and howitzer power in that mission and, in the next mission, will I have artillery (howitzer)? I ask that because I think that if you spend all your howitzer artillery in one mission you will not have the next one. It works the artillery howitzer like that?Some advice with the artillery in this campaing? Sorry but I don't want to read all the post to search an answer cause the spoilers Thanks for help. Loved the two first missions... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pak40 Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 My advice is to start the campaign from scratch (only to re-read the Campaign briefing or notes) that describe how many battles are in each "chapter". If I remember correctly, each chapter had artillery in it. Typically if you use the artillery in that particular chapter then it would not be available for any subsequent battle within that chapter. However, the next chapter would focus on a different battalion which had different artillery assigned to it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jools Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 Hello brothers & sisters in arms! I'm new to CM community, bought this game like a week ago and been really enjoying it since. Just finished Les Licornets mission and i've got a question considering future reinforcements. D Company managed to pull out their left flank succesfully with minimal casualties but unfortunately the boys in Easy weren't so lucky fighting in the middle and right flank. Horrifying german AT barrages took out almost half of the men in E Company. Campaign briefing says there will be reinforcements in chapter 2 but i was wondering will be there be enough to complete the campaign succesfully or should I just restart the mission? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sublime Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 I'd keep playing. You'll feel the loss of course, but you can definitely still make a go of it. Just try to remember that you are in a campaign and therefore not only do you need to be careful with your troops, but you need to be judicious in your use of assets - even down to whether you expend all your on board mortar ammo on trivial targets. Sometimes you wont be resupplied with mortar ammo for a few battles and you will notice its abscence. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paper Tiger Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 Hi Jools Welcome to the boards. About replacements for casualties in Chapter 2: the amount of replacements the 2/505 will receive depends on wins in 'Turnbull's Stand' as well as 'Les Licornets'. Good wins here allows those Paras who scattered further from the LZs to link up with their units. So, if you are winning, you'll get a good refit. Good luck with the rest of the campaign. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jools Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 Ok, thanks for the quick answers. I got victories from both of them so i say a prayer for the fallen and keep pushing towards Berlin. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fizou Posted December 27, 2011 Share Posted December 27, 2011 I just finished the Montebourg campaign, a very good campaign and some of the best fun I had with CMBN so far. Thanks Paper Tiger and I hope we will see more campaigns from you in the upcoming modules. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hister Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 Hi there Paper Tiger! Cudos for a great campaign design! I just played Turnbull's stand and my heart was pounding like crazy on quite a few occasions in this level. Spoiler alert! -------------------------- I concentrated most of my men on the left part of the map and then realized the main German thrust was going to be made on the central and right part of the map. There was some hectic redeploying during the whole scenario - mobility is really important! My AT guns managed to knock out 2 main tanks. That self propelled gun was hit to but projectile glanced from the armour and this bugger later became a huge problem for me to deal with. A bit later on when SPG moved further down the map I realized my mortar team had one more spare shell. This team couldn't see the threat directly but I used my other men to determine where the shell needs to fall. SPG stopped 50 m from my forward positions. Mortar crew fired and I was praying that SPG doesn't move while the shell was in the air and that it hits the unprotected top of the vehicle and the crew inside. My praying didn't bare fruit... Shell exploded just next to it's tracks but unfortunately no major damage was done. I then tried to engage it with 2 men who had one AT grenade but SPG was too far and Germans started to shoot at them when they blew their cover. I thought they were done for but they managed to run as hell and then sneak away under the cover of wheat field, closed in again and set up another trap. SPG's commander thought those men were dead and drove forward right into the trap. When SPG passed just next to them they opened fire and managed to knock out the enemy vehicle from behind. 2 surviving crew members bailed out and one of them got hit by my 2 guys while another one managed to escape under the immense cover of German fire which opened shortly afterwards SPG started to burn. This time they weren't so lucky - one died on the spot and the other one got seriously injured. German infantry continued to push on hard and there were only 5 more minutes for the mission to end. My men were running out of ammo. I've sent all the remaining teams to the save green zone while I left only two guys to halt the German advance of approximately platoon and a half of strength who were now only 30 metres away from the objective. I though I was done for. My lone guys eventually run out of ammo when there was still a minute to go and started to launch rifle grenades at the advancing Germans who were just a few metres short of reaching the objective ... This was one of the longest minutes I had in my life, ... and then the time stopped. We WON! These guys are my heroes - god bless their courage! And the best of all they managed to survive this ordeal. The whole scene was just like the ones you see in the movies!!! Big cudos also to the developers of this game for such a brilliant treat! I'm not quite sure why I failed the objective though since I managed to kill a lot of Germans and negated the ownership of the 3 areas I needed to defend - all this while managing to send my remaining teams to the safety. Paper Tiger can you maybe comment on this screenshot? Why I failed the targets? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paper Tiger Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 Paper Tiger can you maybe comment on this screenshot? Why I failed the targets? Sure. The only parameter for the US player is Enemy casualties You scored 256 (?) points which is roughly 50% casualties although the tanks/vehicles are worth more points. You exited enough force to deny casualty points to the German side and you did so before he had time to touch either of the objectives. A very good performance indeed. You got a Red Cross for the enemy casualties though because you didn't destroy the enemy force (close to 100% casualties) which is hard to do. I spent a lot of time working on this particular mission and it's gratifying to read that someone had the experience that I was looking for when I designed it. This was one of the longest minutes I had in my life, ... and then the time stopped. We WON! These guys are my heroes - god bless their courage! And the best of all they managed to survive this ordeal. The whole scene was just like the ones you see in the movies!!! I started shooting some FRAPS movies while playtesting this mission and they do look very realistic indeed. I have one short sequence of a lone Para firing through the bocage as some 81mm mortar shells start to zero in on his position. But we can see him keep on fighting as the dust from the explosions drifts between him and the camera. He ducks down from time to time when a shell gets too close but a few seconds later, he's back up and firing again. Great stuff... And, BTW, there are three AI plans in this mission and the main thrust is different in each to keep the player guessing right up until he identifies where it's going. Thanks for sharing and good luck with the rest of the campaign. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GerryCMBB Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 Hello: I lost a Sherman on the D67 where it intersects the road to Le Hameau (that 3-way crossing) and also some infantry on the D67 towards Ecoqueneuville. I thought the AT Gun had to be in the bocage straight ahead on the D67. My infantry were well ahead of the Sherman so I was surprised. And the AT gun was way at the back near the end of the objective area as it turned out. I just couldn't see the elevation difference between the crossroads and the AT Gun area. Any tips for spotting these subtle (?) elevation changes? Thanks, Gerry 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paper Tiger Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 Hmm.. that AT Gun at Ecoqueneuville is getting to be famous. Don't worry too much about spoilers as it moves around from plan to plan and there are four of them. I don't really have much advice to give you on identifying subtle elevation changes. (The elevations, as well as everything else, are as true to life as Google Earth permits.) I play the game right down at level 2 or 3 tops and so the elevations are easier to spot when viewed from there. However, I think I am in the minority playing the game like this and so it's not much of a solution for you. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GerryCMBB Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 Hello PT: I play at low levels but I think the difficulty, for me at least, is trying to imagine 3D LOS on a 2D screen. I would love some kind of contour map. Maybe CM can generate those in the future? Gerry 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hister Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 @Gerry: You can maybe get yourself one of those gridded terrain maps whit which I suppose is easier to spot small elevations like the one described by you. In general though you always need to zoom in into the level of the soldiers eyes and review the terrain. Then use LOS button to check how things stand in even bigger detail if needed. Bottom line is WW2 platoon leaders were facing the exact same problems as you described here so this is very okay. You can't really control all the aspects of the battlefield can you? For me this kind of instances improve immersion a lot. Edit: PT, thank you for your answer. Now it makes sense. I actually managed to take out exactly half of the enemy force - not a guy less and not a guy more! Only played a few scenarios so far but this one will be very memorable (besides the School of Hard Knocks that is one he he). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave85 Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 Hi there Paper Tiger! German infantry continued to push on hard and there were only 5 more minutes for the mission to end. My men were running out of ammo. I've sent all the remaining teams to the save green zone while I left only two guys to halt the German advance of approximately platoon and a half of strength who were now only 30 metres away from the objective. I though I was done for. My lone guys eventually run out of ammo when there was still a minute to go and started to launch rifle grenades at the advancing Germans who were just a few metres short of reaching the objective ... This was one of the longest minutes I had in my life, ... and then the time stopped. We WON! These guys are my heroes - god bless their courage! And the best of all they managed to survive this ordeal. Nice account I had a similar experience playing this mission, a single rifleman held up the entire german advance for 10 minutes while the rest evac'd and he still survived. When I reviewed the battle he had about 40 germans almost within grenade range of his position and 12 kills under his belt (he was an assitant BAR man, the gunner was killed very early on) Awesome mission. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
malfuriouspete Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 Fun scenario, I made it to Hell in the Hedgerow, managed to clear it with a tactical US victory (If my memory serves me right, don't have that save file anymore..) My plan of action: I forget specific names of locations so I will use generic terms --- Spoilers follow The villiage in front of me was defended by a few German squads: a squad in the two houses on the left side of the map in the villiage and the rest in the 2-story buildings in the center along the villiage road. Routed/killed them with pretty heavy fire and took up positions behind the hedges and in the buildings. Along the left side of the map was a very long open field, that opened up to a house across the covered road (in front of the creek) so I sent two scouts to check it out, no incoming fire so I thought ok.. i moved them up to the creek proper and saw along the whole left flank was a line of barbed wire and within 3 seconds my guys were blown away (turned out to be from a hidden infantry gun, more on that latter). After a few turns, my squads in the villiage made a visual contact on the infantry gun, so I had a position to fire on. I found a very good spot on the left side of the villiage, in a hay stack field across the road that gave me a nice long LOS to the road objective so I positioned a HQ squad and 2 mortar teams there and started some indirect fire, managed to knock out the gun. Around this time, German Artillery started to fall in the villiage and I lost 2 squads and several casulties in other teams.. which left me royally p***ed off.. but thankfully I kept guys in reserve so I had to move them up, at least to help with buddy aid. In my own stupidity, I decided my attack was to go through the barbed wire section across the creek so I moved 1 platoon through the long field on the left and got a few guys killed crossing the road to the house.. german infantry position farther down the road spotted me and fired some shots so I sent a platoon to the right flank of the map and came across a machine gun in a small hedge and more infantry behind the bocage on the central road. Destroyed these units and moved a squad up into the covered road and took out another infantry unit positioned about halfway down the road to the far house. With the covered road secure I began to move some squads up the left side of the map, had an HQ unit call in a smoke screen in front of the far hedgerows across the creek. Once the smoke came and started to spread, I rushed 3 squads across the creek and were promptly stopped at the barbed wire.. I thought they would be able to cross it at a very slow pace but they just refused to go any further. Next turn I ran 2 squads to the next field over and I started to get shot up by pillboxes and a machine gun hidden in some foxholes across the map.. The smoke left a line of sight for one of the boxes and they shot up 2 squads and broke them.. still had one squad in front of the barbed wire which remained out of sight.. Had to call in a howitzer artillery strike along the road in front of the wire. Once that was finishing up, I only had about 5 minutes at this point.. I moved forward my one squad and didn't recieve any fire. Miraculously, the howitzers knocked out the pillboxes so I got a squad to touch the road. Mission accomplished but I got a serious kick in the pants by the germans. I figure I lost between 30%~35% of my troops.. mainly due to that artillery strike in the villiage and the insane crossing of the creek. I didn't touch the german units along the right side of the road objective, some more pillboxes and machine guns.. I had units fire on them from the covered road but didn't send anyone over to assault them. I probably could have used my mortars more effectively along the road objective, better position of my smoke and definitely not go across the creek on the left side. There was absolutely no cover (my mistake) and I thought squads could go through the wire, apparently not. Hey PT, any thoughts to this? I wonder where would be the more ideal to assault across the creek and any thoughts about dealing with the pillboxes. I got super lucky with my artillery but that may not always be the case. I hope you have some more scenarios in the works!!! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
umlaut Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 Yes, this is truly a great campaign (so far). Enjoying it very much. I have only one question: I am currently playing Turnbull´s Stand and I can´t figure out why the briefing says that the AT guns have "plenty of ammo"? 7 rounds each - including the rounds from the ammo bearers. Is that plenty? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
malfuriouspete Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 Yes, this is truly a great campaign (so far). Enjoying it very much. I have only one question: I am currently playing Turnbull´s Stand and I can´t figure out why the briefing says that the AT guns have "plenty of ammo"? 7 rounds each - including the rounds from the ammo bearers. Is that plenty? yeah... I was wondering about that too. And it doesn't help the ammo situation with the tendancy of the AT guns to fire AP rounds at infantry either... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
umlaut Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 And it doesn't help the ammo situation with the tendancy of the AT guns to fire AP rounds at infantry either... Exactly. My problem too. Yet another reason to bring back "cover armor". 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paper Tiger Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 I am currently playing Turnbull´s Stand and I can´t figure out why the briefing says that the AT guns have "plenty of ammo"? 7 rounds each - including the rounds from the ammo bearers. Is that plenty? There is a simple answer to your question, of course. When I first designed that mission, and wrote the briefing, the AT guns had full ammo loads. However, the 57mm AP shot was so lethal to the German infantry that it was possible to take out the entire German force just by positioning those two guns in good locations. Historically, the Germans had three vehicles in support so I had to keep the AT guns in but I decided to reduce the ammo loads to the bare minimum to give the Germans a chance. And, obviously, forgot to amend the briefing. Sometimes, when you're doing all this work yourself, things get past you 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paper Tiger Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 Hey PT, any thoughts to this? I wonder where would be the more ideal to assault across the creek and any thoughts about dealing with the pillboxes. I got super lucky with my artillery but that may not always be the case. There are four German AI plans in that mission and each one is carefully designed to offer you a completely different experience. So, sometimes it's a good idea to go down the left side and other times, the right side. And one of them is really, really nasty! As for the MG nests, you just have to take your chances with them. You only have to block their LOS to get across the creek and you've got a LOT of 60mm mortars in your OB (six IIRC) so it's not too difficult to keep them out of the action. I hope you have some more scenarios in the works!!! Only another 14-mission campaign for the Commonwealth module 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GerryCMBB Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 Any recommended reading that covers the Road to Montebourg campaign? Thanks, Gerry 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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